Artie-come-lately, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #128

May 17, 2011 Arthur Tebbel 7 Comments

No letter this week.  My mailbox was just crammed with hundreds of questions from Newt Gingrich and each had a different position.  Most of them were racist.  I’d rather do something else.

Like most of you I have not been alive since the beginning of time.  More importantly even for the time I’ve been alive I haven’t been able to do everything.  This can lead to some weird situations where you’re just discovering something that is, in fact, very well known.  This has happened to me a lot lately.  I would like to talk about a few of those things.

Casablanca – This movie is really good.  Maybe you’re heard of it?  I just saw it two weeks ago.  In my defense the movie is 69 years old; if it were a person I wouldn’t even listen to it let alone watch it.  I thought I was in front of this one from a reference perspective.  I knew this is where “As Time Goes By” is from.  I knew “of all the gin joints in all the world.”  What I didn’t know was that there were about 500 things in here that I had no idea originated here.  If time travel is ever a thing I’m going back and taking a lot of originality points away from a lot of cartoons.

Portal – This might be a bigger deal because it came out when I was alive.  Released in 2007 this video game won 37 awards for Game of the Year.  I can’t even name 37 institutions that give out annual video game awards.  My peer group went nuts for this.  I just refused to believe any of them.  “I’m not that in to shooters” would be my standard deflection not realizing this was not an action game but rather a brilliant puzzle game.  If anyone reading this has a video game console or computer (and I bet you have a computer) you should probably give Portal a try.

A Portal aside, it’s been said that Portal is the first non-phallic shooter.  While technically correct, you don’t shoot bullets out of a gun, it seems to say something that you create space-vaginas and then penetrate one while being birthed at the next one.  I don’t think it’s quite the feminist triumph it is often portrayed as.

Sports Night – This came up on Netflix Instant lately and holy crap.  I suppose every modern single camera sitcom owes a great debt to this show but I think Tina Fey should send Aaron Sorkin a fruit basket every few weeks or something.  Maybe two because of how Lorne Michaels dicked over Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on her show’s behalf.  This show is superb but was way ahead of its time.  The laugh track that (Wikipedia reports) was mandated by ABC executives could not possibly seem more out of place.  Also I was 14 when this show came out.  Who has good taste at 14?  I think I’m giving myself a pass for this one.